Sense and Sound
by indelible
Summary: Shino, Hinata, and thirteen months of waiting and longing.


**Sense and Sound**

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* * *

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_december_

It is Hinata's fourteenth birthday today. Shino knows it because the ground is covered with snow and the dark sky is dotted with gray clouds even at daybreak. No flowers in the vicinity bloom and no birds linger outside her window to greet her and say, _you are so wonderful_. It is a premonition, perhaps. Or a dark foreshadowing of things to come.

It is a sad month to be born in for such a sunny place.

It is Hinata's fourteenth birthday and Shino stands outside the Hyuuga gates at the crack of dawn, about to leave for a mission he cannot abandon. Although the Hyuuga do not place a very high value for their heiress, it is only customary for them to prepare a feast, or something that remotely resembles it. Shino listens to the servants' buzzing, their footsteps touching the floor heavily as they run back and forth from room to room.

The sound of it makes him feel relieved that they have not forgotten her. If she had not been heir, he doubts they would remember.

He stays there for a moment, betraying no emotion, and leaves only a single butterfly in his wake, an apology for not being able to be there as her friend, as if to substitute for whatever it is he cannot (afford to) express.

He sends her his love.

* * *

_It fails to enter her window, because Hanabi pulls Hinata away before she could open the curtains._

* * *

_january_

Secretly, Shino thinks that Hinata is always trying to run away.

He thinks of this when she hesitates to talk to an acquaintance, when she lowers her eyes in shame in front of her father, when she cries in the darkness of her lonely room.

The cup in her hands tremble, but only slightly (because Hinata, even during moments like this one, takes extra care to avoid attracting attention to herself), and Kiba looks confused but Shino shoots him a warning glance before he could get a word in.

Secretly, Kiba thinks that Shino is a coward himself, this way.

Shino thinks so, too.

* * *

_Though sometimes, he would like to think of himself as a barrier of protection that separates Hinata from everything else in between them, and no amount of brick or bone could ever penetrate through him, not even her words._

* * *

_february_

Time passes. Everything grows older. Nothing ever stays exactly the same.

Hinata grows more beautiful with each passing day. Shino cannot help but stare at her, sometimes, when he is certain that she is not looking. If (when) she catches him, she does not say anything. She spares him the embarrassment of the awkward situation, spares him the difficult scene of having to lie through his teeth.

Beside her, Kiba tells them about a new restaurant in town, cracking jokes at the expense of the restaurant owner's appearance. ("His name is Maru, and he looks like it, too!") Hinata laughs silently, unobtrusively, without really meaning it, because she has never taken delight in poking (harmless yet cruel) fun at others.

Shino purses his lips, mouth hidden behind his collar, and falters in his steps.

Hinata turns around, the smile on her face more radiant than the sun could ever hope to be, and asks him if there's anything wrong.

His breath catches in his throat, and he can do nothing but stare, and, maybe, shake his head.

* * *

_But he thinks that, maybe, it would be easier to lie, because every glance that goes unnoticed (unacknowledged) makes him wish that she would ask him why he looks at her._

_He would very much like to tell her._

* * *

_march_

March comes and goes, slowly, like a drop of rain that slithers down a blade of grass, hovering, as if suspended in time.

The three of them sit on the roof of Kiba's house one afternoon, just before the sun starts to set, and this is the closest Hinata can get to being a juvenile delinquent. Kiba sleeps soundly, undisturbed by the sound of the grasshoppers in the distance. Shino sits, an epitome of formality and rigidity, hands stuffed in his pockets out of habit than necessity.

Hinata massages Akamaru's furry head, and begins to speak. "I wonder what it's like to be blind."

It sounds so foreign on her tongue, and so strange, when her eyes do not look like normal irises. He looks at her, and thinks, _I think you do more than wonder._

He does not respond.

* * *

_She makes it hard for him to say anything._

* * *

_april_

On Wednesdays, Hinata invites her teammates over for tea. When the week is particularly stressful, Shino looks forward to these peaceful interruptions. If he ever voices out this thought (which, given his communication skills, is almost impossible), Kiba would snort and waggle his eyebrows suggestively, saying, voice dripping with sarcasm, "_really now?_"

It's almost scary how predictable it is.

He nods at Neji when they pass each other in the hallway. Neji's eyes narrow a fraction, but he nods back, cordially, maybe even forcedly. Shino pretends not to notice.

He kicks off his shoes in the entrance of her quarters and steps into the room without knocking. He hides his surprise at finding her all alone.

Hinata smiles up at him, and, for a moment, he makes believe that this is what he goes home to every afternoon.

* * *

_It makes him feel warm._

* * *

_may_

One day, a white butterfly flits into his room, and a chill runs down his spine.

Butterflies signify freedom, even happiness, but there has always been an old saying (a silly old wive's tale, but it nevertheless makes him fearful) that butterflies signify the passing of a loved one, as if to give a chance for the deceased to say goodbye.

White has always reminded him of her.

The little butterfly meekly perches on his finger, and it takes all of his willpower to keep himself from crushing it in his hands.

* * *

_He dreams of little white butterflies swallowed by Venus flytraps hidden in the darkness, and he wakes up in a cold sweat, heart racing and hands shaking violently._

_Outside, a storm is brewing._

* * *

_june_

Hinata has a few strange habits. Habits like talking to the plants in the Hyuuga garden and pressing her pointer fingers together whenever she wants to say something to someone (_but her cheeks are stained red and her mouth cannot move without trembling_).

Recently, she develops a habit of picking at loose threads in other people's clothes. If he were romantic, he would have likened her to a weaver of fates, a story teller with the threads splayed on her lap. But because he has never developed a sentimental bone in his body, he does not speak in metaphors that make no sense to his peers.

Some days Hinata touches the hem of his shirt, idly twirling the thread wrapped around her fingers like a pleased snake. He tenses at the touch, at first, but he remembers that this is _Hinata_, shy, little Hinata who never reaches out to invade someone else's personal space unless she feels comfortable enough to do it.

It makes it easier for him to remain motionless after that.

When Hinata pulls away, he swears that he could feel the burning life of her fingertips even if she does not graze his skin.

* * *

_Once, Hinata drags the edge of her nails up his shirt-covered spine, and he breathes in, swallowing his shaky gasp, his mind disoriented with uncontrollable emotions._

* * *

_july_

Rain falls in July, silently, like a plague stealing on a country.

The three of them take cover in the shade of an old tree. Shino's sunglasses are already getting wet and Akamaru starts to whine pitifully, but they would rather stay there than run home.

Kiba's shoes are covered with a fine layer of mud. He scuffs his shoes against the tree's roots, and the scraping makes a soft, rough sound. Shino closes his eyes, and breathes in the scent of rain and dirt and Kiba and _Hinata_. Beside him, Hinata sneezes.

The act of it makes her seem more vulnerable than ever.

He comes undone.

* * *

_What is it about her that makes him want to protect her, like a Laertes to an Ophelia?_

* * *

_august_

Tea is served, once again, in the Hyuuga household. Shino seats himself on the floor, and the seat next to him is still bare.

They talk for a while, the conversation light and airy, and, when Hinata lifts the teapot, her arm knocks over the teacup in front of her. It stains the hem of her kimono a dark brown.

Hinata's laughter is like a song without words, and it rings in his head, endlessly, like an track on loop.

* * *

_The most beautiful thing about human interaction is the connection two people feel when they share a good laugh. If kisses were outweighed by laughter, then Shino is filled to the brim._

* * *

_september_

The crowd does not part for them like it does for Sasuke, or for Naruto. Rather, it seems to contract ever so slightly, so he has to take hold of her hand so that they would not be separated.

The warmth of it fills him with a strange sort of complacency. Her palm is smooth and her fingers are starting to sweat but his hold on her is still firm. He considers asking her if he is hurting her, because he feels that this happiness that he is feeling is starting to take hold of his own mobility, so much so that it takes the form of rigidity and not smoothness.

Hinata follows him, never once tripping, and, for some reason, he holds his head up higher than he has ever done so in his life.

* * *

_Proud people have little to be proud of unless they can say that they are proud because of another._

* * *

_october_

Youth, like folly, is blind.

He was once a little boy who liked insects as much as the other boy (if not more so) and who never once looked at the little girls in class who chased after beautiful, broken boys and picked flowers to tuck into their hair. If he had done so, he would have noticed a little girl with strange eyes sitting in the sidelines, a timid, happy smile etched on her face for anyone and everyone to see.

Heiresses are molded into perfect beings, even if they grow tired of pretending to be perfect.

He has done away with that image of her, but he is not quite sure if he prefers this new one, who is not quite perfect but wonderful and broken all the same.

* * *

_There is a little girl and a little boy and they grow up to be the same, but not entirely different._

* * *

_november_

He wonders what it would be like if she would face more wars more grueling than they could imagine.

Once, they go on a mission, just the two of them (because ninjas these days are hard to come by, given the amount of work they have to get done), and they get ambushed on the way home. From his peripheral vision, he sees her flinching as she plunges a shuriken deep into a sound nin's thigh, and the blood spatters on her pale face, a contrasting image of innocence and guilt, a flicker of _something_ in her eyes. Horror? Disgust? He is not sure, but he doubts that it would be a sick fascination of the sort.

When they arrive home, he collapses in a heap on his bed, too exhausted to move.

The next time he sees her, the smile does not seem right on her face.

Then the images come to him all at once.

Her wide eyes, her shivering form, her cold, cold hands.

He does not ask, but he offers her his hand in support, and she takes it without a sound.

* * *

_He thinks he would die of loving her._

* * *

_december_

It is a day after her fifteenth birthday today, and he patiently waits for her to come out of the Hyuuga compound, mission-less and free.

She could make him wait for ten minutes, thirty, even a few hours, and he would never mind. But she is too considerate, and he is too fortunate for this fact, so it does not take her five minutes for her to emerge from the front door.

"Ready to train?" He asks her, almost absently, and she nods in affirmation, a small smile gracing her lips.

* * *

_He could say anything at all, and she would listen, but they never really need to tell each other the important things. That is how their relationship works -- a sense of mutualism that thrives on silence, understanding, and, maybe, devotion and love._

_He doubts that he would ever feel this way for another._

* * *

END 


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